Tip 2. Optimization

I read so many books on how to find the right keyword, how to ‘stuff keywords’, how ‘stuffing keywords’ can now seriously damage your health and how Search Engine Optimization is now dead!

A lot of these books were ‘the best guess’ of some self-proclaimed SEO Gurus. Everyone had their own opinion on what worked, how to beat the big ‘G’ and how to make a fortune online!

What I’ve done is tried to take the best bits from my research over the past couple of years and do my own individual SEO. I have one Top Tip to share with you about SEO, are you ready for this?

SEO Top Tip

Don’t worry about it!

But…

There are certain things which I’ve been doing over the past few years which do work and are, I suppose, classed as SEO.

What I’m choosing to do though is forget about the fact that people get hung up about trying to please the Search Engines, at the expense of writing a post or article which is going to be of benefit to their readers!

So, I call these ‘the finishing touches’ to my posts. It’s not SEO (to me!), it’s just the final stages of writing, see if you agree:

Scenario: You’ve just spent a good amount of time writing a post that you are really happy with. You know it’s adding value to your blog and to your readers. This is what I would do next:

Walk away. Make a cuppa and relax.

Come back to the post when ready. Read through it all again. Make corrections where necessary, your readers deserve your very best work.

Check spelling and grammar. Make sure your paragraphs aren’t too long. Can you use bullet points or a numbered list to break up the page?

Have you got any images with the text? If not, why not? Images break up the text and give your readers’ eyes a natural rest. They don’t realize it but they will increase their level of concentration after that image.

Headings! OK, this is getting a bit more SEO like but it’s still to do with how your post reads. This post is called ‘5 Tips for increasing traffic to your blog’. I’ve put this at the top of the page and in a Heading 1 (H1) format. This seems natural because it’s the title, if the Search Engines happen to like that as well then so be it.

Similarly, ‘Tip 2. Optimization’ is in a Heading 2 (H2) format. It’s a sub-heading and again this seems natural so I’m happy!

Links. I really don’t want this post to be lonely. that’s not fair. So I’m going to link this article to some of the other articles on the blog! Maybe an article called ‘

A lot of the above is dedicated Search Engine Optimization but I really don’t see it that way. I see it as optimizing my work and making the content as readable and as interactive as possible. It just happens that the Search Engines don’t mind that too much!

And how does all this increase traffic?

Well, without really thinking about, I’ve made this post more accessible to people.

The Search Engines will like the way I’m doing things, more people will visit through Organic Search and when visitors arrive at my blog, more of them will feel inclined to stick around and see what I’ve got to offer!

Enjoyed reading this and will go forward to read the rest of your tips. Have yet to add pictures to my blog think that is this weeks work they definately do look better though.
Have taken the tip where you have written your blog and then go away from it to back later to correct on board.

Excellent post Jon, it emphasises the need for quality content and of course quality is not just in the writing but presentation of the article with a layout and images which make the article easy and even a pleasure to read. Such an article encourages comments too, which are also good for SEO.